1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to methods, computer-based systems and computer program products for managing documents, in particular document retrieved from, or stored to, application service providers.
2. Discussion of the Background
An application service provider (ASP) is an entity, typically a company, that offers users (individual customers, companies, enterprises, etc.) access over a network, such as the Internet, to applications and related services that would otherwise have to be located on the customer's local computer. For example, ASPs can provide searchable databases of legal, medical, financial, educational, scientific, or marketing documents. Alternatively, some companies provide in-house type ASPs wherein applications are not on the company's employee's personal computers, but instead on a company computer accessible by the employees via a company network. For the purpose of this document, the term “ASP” is thus intended to be broadly interpreted and to include a provider that allows a user to use an application not loaded on the user's computer.
An example of a conventional network of ASPs connected via the Internet is shown in FIG. 1, which shows four exemplary document ASPs 10-40 connected to the Internet 50. In this example, user 70 may independently connect to the ASPs 10-40 via the Internet 50 and download documents, either to view on the screen of the personal computer (PC) 80, to print with printer 90, to store in the local storage device 100 and/or medium drive 110.
Today, there are a great number of ASPs providing various kinds of services and documents. For example, an ASP may provide legal documents, while another may provide marketing documents, yet another may provide educational, scientific, financial, or medical documents, etc. Furthermore, different ASPs may provide these documents in different formats, for example, using different graphical user interfaces (GUIs). When a user needs different kinds of documents, for example, a legal document, a financial document, a scientific document, and each of which is stored in different ASPs, the user must search, find and access an ASP that provides the desired documents. When a number of different kinds of documents are desired, the user may have to search, find and access several ASPs. This multiple searching requirement is time consuming for the user. In addition, because various ASPs may provide documents using different formats, the user may have to re-format the documents so as to obtain documents of a single format. This re-formatting is also burdensome on the user. Because most ASP charge their customers for their services rendered, typically on a pay-per-use basis or a contract basis, the customers, or users, may have to pay several bills, one for each ASP used. This multiple billing system thus imposes an extra burden on the user.
In additions, while users of ASPs may be legal experts such as attorneys, medical experts such as doctors, or financial experts, users may not have any expertise in searching, formatting, organizing, updating, protecting, or in general managing documents retrieved from ASPs. Users therefore waste time attempting to learn about document managing on their own, often by a costly trial and error process.